


Tacos El Gordo

by whateverrrrwhatever



Series: practice prompts [28]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Learns to Live, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Food as a Metaphor for Love, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Slice of Life, Tacos, foreshadowing the relationship basically, i can't imagine a life without tacos al pastor, there's no real ending here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27003955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverrrrwhatever/pseuds/whateverrrrwhatever
Summary: “Carnitas. Lengua. Pastor.” Richie points. The breeze tousles his hair. He’s wearing the sunglasses Eddie hates, bug-eyed wire-rimmed aviator monstrosities that block a third of his face.Eddie lives and tries new things and he likes them. One of those things is the best (according to some) taco truck in the Los Angeles Basin.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: practice prompts [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626685
Kudos: 17





	Tacos El Gordo

**Author's Note:**

> [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) and I have been working our way through a list of prompts since January and posting unedited writing to this collection.
> 
> Written for the prompt "a picnic table outside the local Mexican food truck."
> 
> Nothing happens in this story except Eddie eating a taco.

The tacos are nestled beside each other in red-and-white checked paper trays, already spotted with blotches of orange grease. Eddie eyes all six of them, and the stack of thin napkins clutched in Richie’s hand, fluttering in the wind.

“Don’t overthink it,” Richie says, swinging one leg over the bench opposite. Eddie’s knees are crammed up against whatever half-rotted wood is keeping the ancient picnic table aloft. He’s not surprised Richie’s opted for sidesaddle. He sets two beers on the bench in front of him and shoves a lime into each before offering one to Eddie. “Just enjoy the experience.”

“Which ones are they, again?” Eddie catches a whiff of the fatty meat, chopped onion smell and his mouth waters in spite of his perfectly normal trepidation over tacos originating in the kitchen of a grimy food truck that looks like it’s on its last legs. The green health department “A’ in the window is suspicious rather than reassuring.

“Carnitas. Lengua. Pastor.” Richie points. The breeze tousles his hair. He’s wearing the sunglasses Eddie hates, bug-eyed wire-rimmed aviator monstrosities that block a third of his face. Eddie can never tell what Richie’s looking at, what he’s thinking, when he wears them.

“Take those sunglasses off. You look ridiculous.”

“No. They’re prescription. And designer.” 

“Who?”

Richie shrugs, on the defensive and clearly annoyed by it. “My stylist gave them to me.”

“You look like Jeffrey Dahmer.”

“Stop stalling and eat your goddamn tacos,” Richie huffs, and reaches for his own. He takes a giant bite and looks off toward the road. Conversation over.

Eddie frowns. The tacos look and smell delicious. The grease is soaking through the double corn tortillas cradling the meat, and the chopped cilantro is beginning to wilt in the heat of the day. He hasn’t had pastor or lengua before, but Richie insisted that these were the best tacos in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. It’s improbable, and a bold claim given the sheer volume of candidates, but Eddie’s willing to entertain the possibility. He hadn’t expected the taco truck to look quite like it does, or to find it parked in an empty lot next to a gas station, surrounded by picnic tables so old they’re as good as petrified.

He hadn’t expected puddles of grease, or unfamiliar cuts of beef, or salsa escaping from the tortilla to drip down to Richie’s wrist. Richie licks it up, unelegant and disgusting. Eddie looks away and swallows.

“Fine,” he says, and grabs a taco -- the pastor, bright red and delicious. The taco’s still warm, despite his stalling, and cumbersome. He has to use two hands to hold on, practically unhinge his jaw to take a bite, and still ends up spilling meat on the table.

A second later, he doesn’t care. The taco is so fucking good, greasy and spicy and delicious, and now there’s salsa on Eddie’s fingers and palms, threatening the rolled cuffs of his robin’s egg blue linen shirt, but he’s finding it hard to give a fuck. There’s salsa on his face, too, smeared around his mouth, so hot it almost hurts, just on the right side of too much.

He shouldn’t enjoy this so much, knowing what he does about cholesterol and arteries, gut flora -- heartburn! -- but Richie was right, this is the best taco Eddie’s ever had, not that he’s had many, and he was so hungry, and having tasted the food now he’s ravenous--

“Good, huh?” Richie’s smiling at him, a nearly translucent orange-stained napkin clutched in one hand. Even with the sunglasses that Eddie despises, he can tell Richie’s happy, and not in the self-satisfied way Eddie expected. He’s smiling in the quiet way he does sometimes, and when Eddie catches him at it and asks him what the hell he’s laughing at he says, goofy and sincere, like he’s telling a joke Eddie doesn’t quite understand yet: _nothing, Eds. Just happy to be here._

“Yeah,” Eddie says, swallowing his mouthful of food. He picks up his beer without wiping his hands and takes a long pull. He doesn’t look away from Richie. “It’s good.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on twitter [@whteverwhtever](https://twitter.com/whteverwhtever)


End file.
